In America’s largest, richest cities, home prices and rents are going in opposite directions. — If you think the U.S. housing market is behaving very, very strangely these days, that probably means you’re paying attention. In almost any other year, a weak economy would cripple housing. But the flash-freeze recession of 2020 corresponded with a real-estate boom, led by high-end purchases in suburbs and small…

It’s not just one problem — and we’re going to need a portfolio of approaches to solve it. — Why wouldn’t someone want a COVID-19 vaccine? Staring at the raw numbers, it doesn’t seem like a hard choice. Thousands of people are dying of COVID-19 every day. Meanwhile, out of the 75,000 people who received a shot in the vaccine trials from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and…

Four reasons: social distancing, seasonality, seroprevalence, and shots. — Editor’s Note: The Atlantic is making vital coverage of the coronavirus available to all readers. Find the collection here. One month ago, the CDC published the results of more than 20 pandemic forecasting models. Most projected that COVID-19 cases would continue to grow through February, or at least plateau. Instead…

Too many people imagine the fight against COVID-19 as a land war to be waged with sudsy hand-to-hand combat against grimy surfaces. — Six months ago, I wrote that Americans had embraced a backwards view of the coronavirus. Too many people imagined the fight against COVID-19 as a land war to be waged with sudsy hand-to-hand combat against grimy surfaces. Meanwhile, the science suggested we should be focused on an aerial strategy. The…

The new president must not repeat Obama’s mistakes. — When Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1932, the nation was facing concentric crises: the immediate, house-on-fire disaster of rolling bank closures; the broader economic depression; and, beyond that, deeply entrenched problems that the depression had highlighted, including elderly poverty. Roosevelt’s first 100 days addressed the first two crises with…

Nine months into the pandemic, government leaders can’t comprehend — or refuse to clearly say — what this virus is or how it spreads. — The United States has been overwhelmed by vectors of misinformation throughout the pandemic. But it’s not just Donald Trump, many Republican state leaders, and several thousand COVID-19 deniers who have waged a war against scientific comprehension. America’s virus illiteracy spans the partisan divide.

U.S. COVID-19 statistics are about to look better — even though the reality is almost certainly getting worse. It’s time to hibernate. — Here is what we know about the state of COVID-19 as we approach the winter holiday season. On Thanksgiving Eve, more than 1 million passengers cleared airport security, the highest single-day volume since the coronavirus reshaped American life in March. While airplanes are not likely settings for super-spreader events, everything…

Seven weeks ago, South Korea and the U.S. had the same number of virus deaths. Today, South Korea has fewer than 300, and the U.S. has more than 70,000. — On February 16, a Sunday, a 61-year-old woman with a fever entered the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Daegu, South Korea. She touched her finger to a digital scanner. She passed through a pair of glass doors and proceeded downstairs, to the prayer hall, where she sat with approximately 1,000…

The big will get bigger as mom-and-pops perish and shopping goes virtual. In the short term, our cities will become more boring. In the long term, they might just become interesting again. — Last weekend, I walked a mile along M Street in Washington, D.C., where I live, from the edge of Georgetown to Connecticut Avenue. The roads and sidewalks were pin-drop silent. …